first day of summer vacation, and it's rainingby
margiemuComment by KiwiChris: Greetings from the Critique club.
What a great character study.
I'll start at the technical end, which to my mind is pretty much bang on, you're exposure is good on a contrasty subject, and the B&W conversoin is solid with a good range of tones in the skin and complimentary tones in the shoulder and most of the window.
Focus is good, and you've not been tempted to use the sharpening tools too much as many here on DPC seem to think is mandatory. Making this image tack sharp would have detracted from the wonderful expression on your models face.
I find the highlights on the hair at the top of the frame to be a little distracting, as is the light band showing through the window. Both pull me away from staring into the eyes of the model, where my attention should be. I would have been tempted to dodge/burn (darken, can never remember which is which) the stripe a bit, and maybe crop the top a little more to remove those distrations.
Cropping the top would give the girl a little more space to gaze into as well. I feel her vision is cramped a little.. By that I mean the image is taller than it is wide, and she's looking diagonally out of the frame.. Maybe slighty more of her reflection and less top would fix that? Probably just me. :-).
You've got some great compositional elements in here, by design or accident. Triangles are very strong 'anchors' for an image. The dark area of shoulder and hair is one, neck and jaw line, the eye-line cutting the image diagonally in half. Very solid elements...
As some others mentioned I think the title is maybe a little weak, which loosens the fit for the challenge a little, although I think it's a lovely photo outside the context of the challenge, and would probably have faired well in a different competition with the same title.
Great work, thanks for sharing..
Cheers, Chris Hellyar.
Photographer found comment helpful.
